Dr. Nathan Hare: Will You Vote Nigguh?


Dr. Nathan Hare raises the most serious issue in the Black community--will we vote in the coming election or sit around smoking blunts talking playa hatin bs. We know this will be a close election and we may be the sole persons to blame if Obama loses because of our lethargy, passivity and negativity. Wearing Obama buttons and T shirts is not enough. Get
your black behinds to the polling booths on election day. The devil will have enough tricks for you in this election, but don't trick yourself, then blame him.
--Marvin X
--- On Tue, 9/23/08, Nathan Hare wrote:



From: Nathan Hare




Dr. M,



I agree that many blacks will be upset, and rightfully so, if they perceive that Obama was tricked out of his victory – but not blacks alone – and we will be hitting the streets again, black, white and polka dot.



The real problem is that blacks may be left with their arms around the bag of blame for Obama’s defeat. Indeed, I heard a fellow say on television the other day that Al Gore lost Florida in 2004 by something like 389,000 votes, and hence the election, while 500,000 blacks were registered in Florida but sat home watching television lollygagging and theorizing but didn’t go out and vote. The commentator, admittedly white, also said that five million white college students failed to vote, as I recall it, but he left the clear impression that only a portion of the half a million blacks who were registered but neglected to vote in Florida could have won the state of Florida and therefore the presidential election in 2004.



If this kind of situation should emerge in November, then blacks, not whites, will bear the bolder blame for the defeat of the first black candidate of a major party for election to the presidency of America, the world’s most powerful nation, the refuge of our slave masters, the number one oppressors of all the world, then history itself, with or without Michelle Obama, will “put her foot in the behind” of a whole lot of brothers, and I must promise my god that I will be standing at his side to kick in anytime I am needed, cane, coins and all.



Nathan Hare, Ph.D., Ph.D.

Author of the “Foreword,” to How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy: A Pan African 12-Step Model for a Mental Health Peer Group. By Dr. M.,

Blackbird Press,

21222 Dwight Way ,

Berkeley , CA 94702 , $19.95.

Phone: 510-355-6339.

Obama's Last Ghost


Elijah told us the white wo”man is the white man's last weapon against the black man. We thought once Obama overcame Hillery, he would be home free. But up popped the devil woman number two. Of course she lacks Hillery's political chicanery but she's still white, so never forget this. And white America went into a tizzy over her until the fall of Wall Street, then she became second page news because America cares more about its money than its mama, and no matter the fall began on Clinton's watch, the blame game goes to Bush and the Republicans, thus Obama has another chance now that devil woman number two is backstage. She may pop up again before the race is over, but for now all eyes are on the economy and the robber barons of international finance.



As former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown noted in the Sunday Chronicle, we all should have known something was wrong when a man who couldn't qualify for a $13,000 car loan was able to qualify for a $300,000 house loan. But let's be honest, Obama and McCain have friends and contributors on Wall Street, after all, it is Wall Street who calls the shots in American elections, not the men and women on Main Street, who do not exercise one man one vote anyway, but the matter is decided in the Electoral College, although international finance predetermines the victor, the rest is media drama, unless the Trickster or Legba appears at the crossroads to block, as happened in 2000 and 2004, at which time Shango and Ogun will need to make their appearance. But they will need to act with caution since the US Army has a unit on hand for any domestic disturbance.

We know Blacks will be highly upset if it is perceived Obama is tricked out of his victory.

We must be wise enough to survive so we can fight another day. Or as Bruce Lee said, "Learn to fight by not fighting."



No matter what, America is on the down, and even if he wins, it is doubtful Obama can save her since she is suffering a multitude of sins, not just economically, but her military is overstretched, her educational system is in total disarray, and she is morally bankrupt with no respect in the global village. While the winds of revolution blow throughout the Americas, the United States is yet the bastion of reaction and white supremacy backwardness. Instead of providing leadership in the new era, she is lagging in political foresight, like a retarded child who cannot tell the time of day.



As we go into the stretch with this Obama drama, we hope Michelle will put her foot in his behind and push him over the finish line, for his victory will only be a step in our overdue attempt to reach the mountain top.



--Marvin X



Marvin X is a revolutionary nationalist whose spiritual philosophy is to push man to accept his divinity and act accordingly, for all things are divine but many humans do not recognize their essence which is spirituality. . Do not be blinded by color, ethnicity, gender or any other illusion of the monkey mind.
--from Up From Ignorance, Marvin X, the Soulful Musings of a North American African, Black Bird Press, 2009
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com

jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Plato on the Poetic Victory


The poetic victory is simply this: when the people come to the poet to praise him because his work has transformed their lives. The poet has no other mission than to inspire the people to be their better selves. Thus, we were honored and praised a few days ago when two hip hop youth passed the poet on the street, then, upon recognizing who he was, returned to shake his hand to thank him for changing their lives. They claimed they found a half of his book Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, essays, 2005, on the bus and they were transformed into conscious activist poets, who presented to the master poet their latest CD on the anti-violence theme.

People called the master poet mad when he decided to give out free copies of his books at the crossroads of Oakland, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. He gave out $3,000 to $5,000 worth of books. He said God told him to do so. After hearing from the youth, he knew he had done the right thing. Surely we will give away $3,000 or $4,000 to save a youth!

But the glory is in the reaction rather than the action. He is duty bound to spread the truth.
“Will you hide the truth while you know?” says Qur’an. But from the response of the young men the poet felt vindicated. And other youth have told similar things: not so long ago a youth just released from the Santa Rita County Jail told the poet he had read his book How to Recover from the Addiction of White Supremacy, and he was changed. He vowed to never again deal dope to our people, based of the testimony of Dr. M. He was searching for a job when he ran into the poet at 14th and Broadway.

And so we call these happenings the poetic victory, for we see the power of words to transform and raise us from the dead, Nommo, the sacred word made real and breathing, water for the weary traveler.

This

This is not about making money
selling books
ego or fame
women or children
Old age and sex
sin or some preacher
Some holy book or how one prays
a simple thing
tears in eyes
working last nerve
standing when feet tired
Talking when silence is desire
showing love when hatred is behind smile
feeding poor when they ask
Like listening to an old woman homeless
story of a mad negro and a mad African one after another
street children with grills in their mouths
telling stories of spirit world
the daily round
work unfinished
truth no matter
a circle coming
round and round and round

This is not the personal
A lover lost in traffic
about the teacher
but the student who learns to stand
to teach
what he is taught
About comrades who will gather on the corner
to save themselves
about the black the white the mixed or the mad
coming together to realize
life is a moment to seize
or be lost in eternity.
action and reaction
Passing the tone test in the presence of the beast.
getting through the day so one can fight tomorrow.
seeking knowledge above food, rent and pleasure.
Knowledge powers
universe into ball
We throw into space
and time
until it explodes
particles
a new world
to see
and wonder.

--Dr. M
10/2/07

Marvin X Defined

Marvin X is a revolutionary nationalist whose spiritual philosophy is to push man to accept his divinity and act accordingly, for all things are divine but many humans do not recognize their essence which is spirituality. Do not be blinded by color, ethnicity, gender or any other illusion of the monkey mind.--,Up From Ignorance, Marvin X, the Soulful Musings of a North American African, Black Bird Press, 2009

www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo. com

Obama's Last Ghost



Elijah told us the white woman is the white man's last weapon against the black man. We thought once Obama overcame Hillery, he would be home free. But up popped the devil woman number two. Of course she lacks Hillery's political chicanery but she's still white, so never forget this. And white America went into a tizzy over her until the fall of Wall Street, then she became second page news because America cares more about its money than its mama, and no matter the fall began on Clinton's watch, the blame game goes to Bush and the Republicans, thus Obama has another chance now that devil woman number two is backstage. She may pop up again before the race is over, but for now all eyes are on the economy.

As former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown noted in the Sunday Chronicle, we all should have known something was wrong when a man who couldn't qualify for a $13,000 car loan was able to qualify for a $300,000 house loan. But let's be honest, Obama and McCain have friends and contributors on Wall Street, after all, it is Wall Street who calls the shots in American elections, not the men and women on Main Street, who do not exercise one man one vote anyway, but the matter is decided in the Electoral College, although international finance predetermines the victor, the rest is media drama, unless the Trickster or Legba appears at the crossroads to block, as happened in 2000 and 2004, at which time Shango and Ogun will need to make their appearance. But they will need to act with caution since the US Army has a unit on hand for any domestic disturbance.

We know Blacks will be highly upset if it is perceived Obama is tricked out of his victory. We must be wise enough to survive so we can fight another day. Or as Bruce Lee said, "Learn to fight by not fighting." No matter what, America is on the down, and even if he wins, it is doubtful Obama can save her since she is suffering a multitude of sins, not just economically, but her military is overstretched, her educational system is in total disarray, and she is morally bankrupt with no respect in the global village. While the winds of revolution blow throughout the Americas, the United States is yet the bastion of reaction
and white supremacy backwardness. Instead of providing leadership in the new era, she is lagging in political foresight, like a retarted child who cannot tell the time of day.

As we go into the stretch with this Obama drama, we hope Michelle will put her foot in his behind and push him over the finish line, for his victory will only be a step in our overdue attempt to reach the mountain top.

--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Bank the Bankers



Bank the bankers

Fleeing Russia with pants in hand

Fleeing Wall Street cross Brooklyn Bridge

The fundamentals are sound said Bush/McCain

Then Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bit the dust

Bank the bankers

Those communist in capitalist drag

Sharing the robbery of workers

Homeless in the snow

Bankers ski in the Alps

Gleaming Wall Street Journal

Sliding down the slope

Champagne on ice

Bank the bankers

Bear Sterns

Washington Mutual

Bank of America

Thieves in the night

Who is Federal Reserve?

To workers in the cold

Who is the Treasury?

To grandma’s house gone

She in shelter bout to stroke

Don’t understand the sub prime loan

Her son took out

He gone on dope

Like the president

Drunk in white house

Fundamentally sound

Just ride out this crisis

Don’t lose yo cool

He tells American people

Fleeing Katrina and Ike

Hurricane hit Wall Street

Taxpayers took tab

Bank the bankers

Let them taste jail

Eat zoo zoos and wham whams

no end in sight

Let the dollar fly in the air

bankers don’t care

They home by the fire

In the pickle room

don’t care

workers have no homes

No car

No stocks, no bonds, retirement gone

Burial insurance in hand,. thank God

What good is that?

Bank the bankers

Those loose loaning pigs

Even the jobless got loans

Bankers didn’t care

Sell the notes to China, Russia

Saudi Arabia

Sell Citibank and Chase

Sell America to whomever

Give a loan to whomever

No credit check

No collateral

No job

Sell America

Sell yo mama

Bankers don’t care

Greed rules this day

The heartless have their homes

Their summer & winter retreats

Bank the bankers

Let them eat pizza on Riker’s Island

Or Leavenworth.



--Marvin X

www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com

Marvin X Replies to Lil Joe on the Fall of America and Marxists

Lil Joe, thank you for slapping me upside the head for downing the Marxist analysis of society and those brothers and sisters who had a clear vision of "what's going on" for a long time. I stand corrected, although you need to read Elijah on "The Decline of the Dollar" and other writings on economics, as in The Fall of America. As I listen to the news this morning, it is crystal clear to me the capitalists are more socialist than socialists, but only when it comes to their brother/sister capitalists in danger of losing what they have stolen and robbed from the masses. As I write, they are bailing out the blood sucking bankers with unlimited billions from the US treasury while the poor and workers go about with empty pockets, the streets full of baby prostitutes working for food. It seems to me that if this is how the capitalists crumble under pressure, why is it so impossible for us revolutionaries to put mass pressure on them for our agenda, including reparations, national sovereignty, land and whatever else we desire as a people. Why are we not demanding the billions and trillions we need for our national aspirations. Surely, a few days or weeks of a general strike will make the capitalist bandits say, "Let's make a deal." Meanwhile, the capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor will continue bailing out each other, practicing their primitive communism as the masses go down, down, down, believing a better day is coming. Obama, as transformer, has inspired the people. Will he be able to transact any business for our national aspirations, it is doubtful since he can hardly utter the word black without being accused of partiality. His foreign policy is indeed reactionary and no better than Bush/McCain- -the stupid idea of attacking Pakistan revealed his desire to appear Hawkish, yet it reveals raw ignorance since Pakistan has the ultimate weapon to deter aggression from the US or anyone else. --Marvin X

--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Lil Joe wrote:

From: Lil Joe
Subject: Fwd: [blackantiwar] Fw: The Fall of America
To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 8:17 AM

Hello Marvin, You know that I acknowledge you as a critical thinker and [subjectively, i.e. an honest] revolutionary, and I respect your religion. However, we here have a disagreement which was the revolutionary side of the historical critique of capitalism - what you call "America" - the Nation of Islam i.e. Elijah Muhammad, or the Marxist e.g. C.L.R. James. You wrote: "The fall of America was foretold by Elijah but his teachings were rejected by the Black intellectuals in Crisis whose Marxist analysis was not crystal clear on this point." Reply:I don't know what "Black intellectuals in Crisis" you are writing in reference to. If you are referring to the book "Crisis of the Negro Intellectual" , written as the pro-capitalist' s black bourgeois "intellectual" Harold Cruz, who attacked Blacks for becoming revolutionary class struggle communists, personified by the teacher played by Denzil Washington in the film on a Black Debating club, who also organized Black and white sharecroppers in the evenings, this is the kind of person Cruz was attacking and the NOI called "assimilationists" and "integrationists" , these black communists knew exactly what they were doing. The foremost "Black intellectual" who openly declared himself a communist revolutionary was C.L.R. James, who mastered both Hegel and Marx. Yes, he rejected prophesy and Elijah as a prophet, and Elijah's teaching that the white man is a 'devil' and the "fall of America" being accomplished by earth quakes, floods, and other natural disasters, being directed by Black aliens in space ships from "the Mother Ship". James was a clear thinking Marxist concerning the collapse of capitalism engendered by its internal material contradictions, and of working class revolution in response to it:, He wasn't a "Black intellectual in Crisis". This, for instance is from an article by C.L.R. James:
Marxism and the IntellectualsA review of Raymond Williams' Culture and Society and The Long Revolution
I. The Creative Power of the Working Class
"Honor to whom honor is due. There is a campaign on by the capitalist class in all the advanced countries to prove that capitalism is so affluent, that is to say, so prosperous that workers everywhere are becoming middle class. The rulers of society want to imply that not only has capitalism solved what Marxists say it cannot solve its, economic difficulties, but they want to throw water on the idea that socialism is an inherent need for working people. Where, as in England, there is a powerful Labor Party, they want to encourage voters to vote middle class, i.e. to abandon the idea that as workers they have their special political interests. By the same means they want to encourage voters everywhere to vote for reactionary parties. Raymond Williams, the English socialist writer, has given that bold example of capitalist lying propaganda a knock-out blow which I gladly reproduce. This is what he says:- "Before World War II the condition of the working class in England was a world-wide scandal. Poverty, unemployment, social degradation in many "depressed areas" seemed permanent. Undoubtedly the Labor victory in 1945 improved working class conditions of life. What is called "prosperity" is that the worst of the of the shocking conditions have been eliminated. The Conservatives accepted the change and promised, if they got back to power, not to go back to the old days. They have got back to power since 1951. They spend a vast amount of their resources and energy seeking to convince ordinary Se that, owing to this new prosperity, labor must now desert the very idea of labor politics. ... "But Mr. Williams can say with some justification: if the class has not made the decisive step, has not faced the necessity of thinking its own thoughts and working out its own actions, what do you expect me to do? Here we come face to face with another fundamental of Marxism, the inevitability of socialism. It is possible that Mr. Williams believes this to be Marxist jargon, or a phrase to keep up the spirits of devoted fanatics. It is in reality the key to any serious Marxist political analysis of socialism. Marx did not use it as an incitement. It can be said that philosophically he never accepted it as truth, as absolute truth. Over and over again he carefully said: socialism or barbarism. That is to say, either the working class establishes the socialist society or the contradictions of capitalism will lead society to barbarism. The precise meaning of barbarism is a matter for debate, for those who wish to. For my part, not only were Fascism and Stalinism barbarisms (literally), but the ultimate in human barbarism has been reached when the most powerful statesmen of today organize their societies with the physical destruction of total societies as their main object. This is due to the necessity of preserving what they very rightly call their way of life. Marx's inevitability of socialism was a philosophical, a theoretical postulate, a necessity of thought, based on his conviction that capitalism would inevitably end as it is ending. With this postulate you approach every political, every social, every economic problem or set of circumstances; you look for those forces, movements, objective or subjective, which advance the cause of socialism and hasten the destruction of capitalism." http://www.marxists .org/archive/ james-clr/ works/1962/ destruction- paper/ch01. htm
You wrote:"But Elijah told you the dollar would be floating in the street soon and very soon. He told you men's hearts would be failing them due to the fear caused by the fall of the international finance system called Global capitalism or imperialism. He told you this in his book Fall of America. But you intellectual Negroes are so smart you have outsmarted yourselves, thus your crisis." Reply: I am not familiar with Elijah Muhammad doing and presenting any analysis of material use value and exchange value of commodities, money as the commodity commensurate with other commodities as use value and exchange value, becoming use value as exchange value embodied and quantified in gold, silver, nickle and copper to serve as means of circulation of commodities, currency displacing material money and inflation; nor, am I familiar with any of Elijah Muhammad's treatise or articles on finance capital and its collapse. In any event, it is great to see you writing as you have done in this piece. Yet, it sames a contradiction that you refer to America and its political system as evil, the Beast and the Great Whore, on a divinely ordained path to destruction; but, at the same time, you endorse Obama and the Democrats - a party that is part of the peopling of this "Beast"/ "Great Whore" - as the party and the man to save "America" the "Beast" and "Great Whore, from its divinely engineered "fall" Lil Joe
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marvin X Jackmon Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:03 PMSubject: [blackantiwar] Fw: The Fall of AmericaTo: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com, TheAfrikanConscious nessCenter@ yahoogroups. com, theblacklist@ lists.riseup. net--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Marvin X Jackmon wrote: From: Marvin X Jackmon Subject: The Fall of America To: jmarvinx@yahoo. com Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 5:00 AM The Fall of America The fall of America was foretold by Elijah but his teachings were rejected by the Black intellectuals in Crisis whose Marxist analysis was not crystal clear on this point. But Elijah told you the dollar would be floating in the street soon and very soon. He told you men's hearts would be failing them due to the fear caused by the fall of the international finance system called Global capitalism or imperialism. He told you this in his book Fall of Amerca. But you intellectual Negroes are so smart you have outsmarted yourselves, thus your crisis. You can't figure your asses from a hole in the ground. You see American falling before your very eyes, yet you are dumbfounded on the reality before your eyes. The Great Beast cannot fall, not yet, he must recover, it is only a matter of time. No, brother, this is the fall of the Great Whore, Babylon the Great. And you may fall with him unless you pull your nuts out of the sand and get a grip on your Divinity. Keep thinking Sunni Islam can save you, or any other religiosity full of reaction rather than a radical destruction of the status quo. All your prayers are for naught, your meaningless praying and fasting can go to the winds that you see in the hurricanes blowing your asses into the skies from city to city, state to state. Pray and see of God will help you in your pitiful hour of need. This is the end for you and your master, whether white, Arab, Asian, European, African or whatever. They shall go down with you in your iniquity. You persist in hanging around the rich man's gate while he is suffering in misery because of his greed and desire for domination.

Plato Negro on Muslims and Communists





Muslims and Communists should not only agree to disagree but agree on what they have in common which is a radical view of this society and civilization. We should agree that though we use different terminology, we come to the same conclusion on many matters concerning the social, economic and political analysis of society and the need for radical change or revolution.



Although Communist deny the existence of God, in Elijah Muhammad’s theology, God has a material basis which is man and the material world. Thus those of us taught by Elijah do not accept God as a spook or spirit floating through the air, and we certainly do not believe we must die to go to heaven, but we know heaven and hell are conditions of life, not death. Such teachings that heaven is up in the sky is slavery teachings which render us tools and fools of the white man.



I’m not waiting around to go to heaven. I’m in heaven everyday I am blessed to get up and walk down the street. And even this hell we can turn into heaven with radical action, flipping the script of ignorance by spreading knowledge and wisdom to the people, thus bringing them into the light from the darkness of slavery teachings.



The Muslims and Communists should work together as we did during the 60s. There is no doubt that Marxists and Muslims provided the ideological and spiritual energy for the liberation movement. The Muslims, though nationalist, were just as internationalist as the Communist, for the Muslims saw and see the world as the Nation of Islam. And we have a radical Christian tradition as well, from David Walker, Nat Turner, Prosser, Vesey down to Martin Luther King, Jr.



Of course, Muslims see Communists as Godless devils. And Communists see Muslims as

people lost in the metaphysical. But we believe in the physical and metaphysical. And I dare say Communists believe in the material and spiritual world. I have seen my Communist friend, Amiri Baraka, express his spirituality in performance. And don’t tell me when his son was shot in the head with a 357 Magnum, he and his wife and friends didn’t pray for that boy! Was it Marxism that healed that boy or the healing power of prayer with medical attention? And when you Marxists are flying at thirty thousand feet and hit turbulence, whom do you call, Marx or God and the Ancestors?



Some would say our contradictions are so great we cannot do anything together, but the 60s put the lie to this notion because we did many things together—if nothing else, we learned from each other. The so-called Marxist-Leninist Black Panther ten point program derived from Elijah’s What the Muslims Want, What the Muslims Believe. The Black Arts Movement was steeped in Muslim ideology, and what is the source of Black Studies if not the Pan Africanist and Islamic teachings of Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad.



Many of our people turned to Islam and Communism for the same reasons: disillusionment with hypocritical Christianity, for as Baldwin told me in an interview at his Harlem apartment, 1968, “Your condition proves Christians don’t believe what they say.”



The great Pan Africanist Wilmot Blyden commanded Muslims and Christians to unite and work together for mutual benefit (Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, 1887), and I say today those of us who are Marxist and Muslims should do the same. We should stop debating terminology while our people are suffering from poverty, ignorance and disease.

We should not question their newfound hope in Obama, but take full advantage of the hour to educate them around Obama rather than playa hatin. Imagine Obama is Crack. Now it was some time before Crack took hold on the intellectuals and radicals, but in the end it got the best of us. So if the people are on Crack, we should tell them the evils of this drug but don’t doctor the patients to death because they ain’t gonna stop smoking, just as they are going to go with Obama down to the wire. We should be intelligent enough to know this—yes, even though we have a continent in Africa full of black presidents not worth the time of day. You know babies love candy—let the babies have their candy. Why do you want to snatch the candy out their mouths, making them cry. They have not had candy in a long time, maybe 45 years—so let them celebrate the little candy, if only for a moment. The people have a choice, Obama or McCain, so which would you prefer being realistic and intellectual, looking at reality cold blooded, not starry eyed romantics.



Marxists should provide our people with a clear analysis of how they see this political matter. As per Muslims, Elijah told us no politician of this world can save us, only us can save us. So the job of Muslims and Marxists is to provide our people with ideological clarity. And if he wins, celebrate and educate, and if he loses, celebrate and educate.



Those of us claiming radical consciousness should be the leaders, not lagging and playa hatin. We should let the people know if we do not put forth a radical agenda for Obama, he will respond to the agenda of those who do pressure him, especially from the right.



Those of us on the Left should stop the silly mess about he ain’t black when half the black population is tainted with white blood as much if not more than Obama.



www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com

Decline of the Dollar

By Messenger Elijah Muhammad

Reprinted from The Fall of America, Chapter 20

The strong-hold of the American government is falling to pieces. She has lost her prestige among the nations of the earth. One of the greatest powers of America was her dollar. The loss of such power will bring any nation to weakness, for this is the media of exchange between nations. The English pound and the American dollar have been the power and beckoning light of these two great powers. But when the world went off the gold and silver standard, the financial doom of England and America was sealed. 2 The pound has lost 50 percent of its value. America’s dollar has lost everything now as power backing for her currency, which was backed by gold for every $5 note and up. All of her currency was backed by silver, from a $1 note up. 3 But today, the currency of America is not backed by any sound value - silver or gold. The note today is something that the government declares they will give you the value in return, but does not name what the value is. But they definitely are not backing their currency with silver or gold. 4 This is the number - one fall, and it is very clear that the loss of the power of the American dollar means the loss of the financial power of America. What will happen since there is no sound backing for her notes we do not know.. 5 What should we expect even in the next twelve months under the fall of the power of America’s dollar? This means that we have 100 percent inflation. What could happen under 100 percent inflation? Your guess is as good as mine. The power of gold and silver was once abundant in America. But the touch of the finger of God against the power of so mighty a nation has now caused the crumbling and fall of America. 6 We can easily and truthfully liken the fall of America to the prophetic symbolical picture given in the (Bible) Revelation of John 18:2. The name Babylon used there does not really say whether it is ancient Babylon or a picture of some future Babylon. 7 The description it gives is as follows: "And he (angel) cried mightily with a strong voice (with authority) saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and is become the habitation of devils, (Allah has declared the people to be a race of devils) and the hole of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." The description here give to the Babylon by the prophets compares with the present history and people of America and their fall. 8 The picture shows the cause of her fall. Number one, she had become the habitation of devils, and being the habitation of devils makes her a haven for every people that love the works and doings of the devil. Here the prophet refers to them, symbolically, as being a hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 9 People are referred to as birds, snakes, beasts, fish and other animals to tell or represent the characteristics of that person. It is universally known that the very beginning of the American people was from the lower class of European people. And their first ruler (President Washington) was a fugitive from England. And the common, dissatisfied and lower grade of European people followed and boosted his authority. This filled and inhabited America with a very low class and low-based people. 10 And then this type of people went into Africa and purchased slaves from among our people who were also uneducated, most of them; but there were a few who were highly educated. All of these began to mix with the low-based, evil-minded, real citizens of the Western Hemisphere (whites). And when America began to get strong in power, she opened her doors to the underprivileged (laborers) in overpopulated countries such as China, Japan, and in Europe to seek citizenship in America. 11 This brought into America one of the most mixed people, who were granted the freedom to live any kind of life they chose. They were not forced to serve the God of the universe who made heaven and earth nor any religion. They had freedom of worship. This made America a haven for any people who wished to be free of the compellers of religion and just rule and authority. This people for the past five hundred years have put into practice every evil that is imaginable. 12 The freedom of uncleanliness is granted and is worshiped. The percentage of sexual worship of the same sex is greater than any government on the face of the earth. Little children are bing taught sex almost from the cradle, making the whole nation, as one man put it, "nearly 90 percent freaks of nature." 13 It is common to see on the streets of any metropolitan city of America men sweethearting with men and women sweethearting with women. Little boys with boys and little girls with girls. 14 It is common that a decent family is puzzled as to where to send their children for schooling. There are no all girl schools as there once were. They are all girls schools of sweethearts; the same sex falling upon their own. Boys’ colleges are breeding such filthy practice; the jail houses, prisons, and the federal penitentiaries are all breeding dens of homosexuals. 15 As the Prophet says in the 18th chapter; "She is a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." There are types of hateful birds. This is why a symbolical name is given. It means human beings. There are birds of prey and birds that are unclean such as crows, owls, buzzards and ravens who live and thrive off the carcass of others. And there are unclean people living and thriving off the unclean. 16 It is time that God intervenes to bring about an end of such people as the wicked of America. She offers the same filth to all of the civilized of the earth, and she hates you if you are against her way of life and will threaten you with death as the Sodomites did Lot and his followers. But I say to you as the 4th verse of Revelations, Chapter 18 says: You that want to be a better people than this, "come out of her." 17 The so-called American Negroes are referred to here in the 4th verse as being God’s people ("My people") Come out of her...that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues." 18 This is a call to the American so-called Negroes to give up a doomed, wicked people that has destroyed them from being a people worthy of recognition, and who have now become lovers of their enemies and destroyers. 19 The 5th verse tells us that "Her sins have reached into heaven and God has remembered her iniquities and is ready to destroy her." Her destruction cometh quickly, according to the 8th verse, that plagues of death, mourning and famines which cometh in one day (one year) then after that she shall be destroyed by fire, utterly burned." 20 This is backed up by the words: "Strong is the Lord God who judge her." Here it gives us a knowledge that He who judges is well able with power, with wisdom, and with deliberate and careful maneuvering to make judgement against her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Muhammad Speaks Newspaper
P.O Box 44261
Detroit, MI 48244
Phone: 313-371-7033 Fax: 313-922-0801
E-mail: MhmdSpeaks@netzero. net

Re: [blackantiwar] Fw: The Fall of AmericaTuesday, September 16, 2008 2:12 PM
From: "Amirib@aol.com" View contact details To: jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Lil Joe is a Trotskyist His God is a dead white man
--Amiri Baraka

In a message dated 9/16/2008 10:07:18 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jmarvinx@yahoo.com writes:
Lil Joe, thank you for slapping me upside the head for downing the Marxist analysis of society and those brothers and sisters who had a clear vision of "what's going on" for a long time. I stand corrected, although you need to read Elijah on "The Decline of the Dollar" and other writings on economics, as in The Fall of America. As I listen to the news this morning, it is crystal clear to me the capitalists are more socialist than socialists, but only when it comes to their brother/sister capitalists in danger of losing what they have stolen and robbed from the masses. As I write, they are bailing out the blood sucking bankers with unlimited billions from the US treasury while the poor and workers go about with empty pockets, the streets full of baby prostitutes working for food. It seems to me that if this is how the capitalists crumble under pressure, why is it so impossible for us revolutionaries to put mass pressure on them for our agenda, including reparations, national sovereignty, land and whatever else we desire as a people. Why are we not demanding the billions and trillions we need for our national aspirations. Surely, a few days or weeks of a general strike will make the capitalist bandits say, "Let's make a deal." Meanwhile, the capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor will continue bailing out each other, practicing their primitive communism as the masses go down, down, down, believing a better day is coming. Obama, as transformer, has inspired the people. Will he be able to transact any business for our national aspirations, it is doubtful since he can hardly utter the word black without being accused of partiality. His foreign policy is indeed reactionary and no better than Bush/McCain--the stupid idea of attacking Pakistan revealed his desire to appear Hawkish, yet it reveals raw ignorance since Pakistan has the ultimate weapon to deter aggression from the US or anyone else. --Marvin X

--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Lil Joe wrote:

From: Lil Joe
Subject: Fwd: [blackantiwar] Fw: The Fall of America
To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 8:17 AM

Hello Marvin, You know that I acknowledge you as a critical thinker and [subjectively, i.e. an honest] revolutionary, and I respect your religion. However, we here have a disagreement which was the revolutionary side of the historical critique of capitalism - what you call "America" - the Nation of Islam i.e. Elijah Muhammad, or the Marxist e.g. C.L.R. James. You wrote: "The fall of America was foretold by Elijah but his teachings were rejected by the Black intellectuals in Crisis whose Marxist analysis was not crystal clear on this point." Reply:I don't know what "Black intellectuals in Crisis" you are writing in reference to. If you are referring to the book "Crisis of the Negro Intellectual", written as the pro-capitalist's black bourgeois "intellectual" Harold Cruz, who attacked Blacks for becoming revolutionary class struggle communists, personified by the teacher played by Denzil Washington in the film on a Black Debating club, who also organized Black and white sharecroppers in the evenings, this is the kind of person Cruz was attacking and the NOI called "assimilationists" and "integrationists", these black communists knew exactly what they were doing. The foremost "Black intellectual" who openly declared himself a communist revolutionary was C.L.R. James, who mastered both Hegel and Marx. Yes, he rejected prophesy and Elijah as a prophet, and Elijah's teaching that the white man is a 'devil' and the "fall of America" being accomplished by earth quakes, floods, and other natural disasters, being directed by Black aliens in space ships from "the Mother Ship". James was a clear thinking Marxist concerning the collapse of capitalism engendered by its internal material contradictions, and of working class revolution in response to it:, He wasn't a "Black intellectual in Crisis". This, for instance is from an article by C.L.R. James:
Marxism and the IntellectualsA review of Raymond Williams' Culture and Society and The Long Revolution
I. The Creative Power of the Working Class
"Honor to whom honor is due. There is a campaign on by the capitalist class in all the advanced countries to prove that capitalism is so affluent, that is to say, so prosperous that workers everywhere are becoming middle class. The rulers of society want to imply that not only has capitalism solved what Marxists say it cannot solve its, economic difficulties, but they want to throw water on the idea that socialism is an inherent need for working people. Where, as in England, there is a powerful Labor Party, they want to encourage voters to vote middle class, i.e. to abandon the idea that as workers they have their special political interests. By the same means they want to encourage voters everywhere to vote for reactionary parties. Raymond Williams, the English socialist writer, has given that bold example of capitalist lying propaganda a knock-out blow which I gladly reproduce. This is what he says:- "Before World War II the condition of the working class in England was a world-wide scandal. Poverty, unemployment, social degradation in many "depressed areas" seemed permanent. Undoubtedly the Labor victory in 1945 improved working class conditions of life. What is called "prosperity" is that the worst of the of the shocking conditions have been eliminated. The Conservatives accepted the change and promised, if they got back to power, not to go back to the old days. They have got back to power since 1951. They spend a vast amount of their resources and energy seeking to convince ordinary Se that, owing to this new prosperity, labor must now desert the very idea of labor politics. ... "But Mr. Williams can say with some justification: if the class has not made the decisive step, has not faced the necessity of thinking its own thoughts and working out its own actions, what do you expect me to do? Here we come face to face with another fundamental of Marxism, the inevitability of socialism. It is possible that Mr. Williams believes this to be Marxist jargon, or a phrase to keep up the spirits of devoted fanatics. It is in reality the key to any serious Marxist political analysis of socialism. Marx did not use it as an incitement. It can be said that philosophically he never accepted it as truth, as absolute truth. Over and over again he carefully said: socialism or barbarism. That is to say, either the working class establishes the socialist society or the contradictions of capitalism will lead society to barbarism. The precise meaning of barbarism is a matter for debate, for those who wish to. For my part, not only were Fascism and Stalinism barbarisms (literally), but the ultimate in human barbarism has been reached when the most powerful statesmen of today organize their societies with the physical destruction of total societies as their main object. This is due to the necessity of preserving what they very rightly call their way of life. Marx's inevitability of socialism was a philosophical, a theoretical postulate, a necessity of thought, based on his conviction that capitalism would inevitably end as it is ending. With this postulate you approach every political, every social, every economic problem or set of circumstances; you look for those forces, movements, objective or subjective, which advance the cause of socialism and hasten the destruction of capitalism." http://www.marxists .org/archive/ james-clr/ works/1962/ destruction- paper/ch01. htm
You wrote:"But Elijah told you the dollar would be floating in the street soon and very soon. He told you men's hearts would be failing them due to the fear caused by the fall of the international finance system called Global capitalism or imperialism. He told you this in his book Fall of America. But you intellectual Negroes are so smart you have outsmarted yourselves, thus your crisis." Reply: I am not familiar with Elijah Muhammad doing and presenting any analysis of material use value and exchange value of commodities, money as the commodity commensurate with other commodities as use value and exchange value, becoming use value as exchange value embodied and quantified in gold, silver, nickle and copper to serve as means of circulation of commodities, currency displacing material money and inflation; nor, am I familiar with any of Elijah Muhammad's treatise or articles on finance capital and its collapse. In any event, it is great to see you writing as you have done in this piece. Yet, it sames a contradiction that you refer to America and its political system as evil, the Beast and the Great Whore, on a divinely ordained path to destruction; but, at the same time, you endorse Obama and the Democrats - a party that is part of the peopling of this "Beast"/ "Great Whore" - as the party and the man to save "America" the "Beast" and "Great Whore, from its divinely engineered "fall" Lil Joe
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marvin X Jackmon Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:03 PMSubject: [blackantiwar] Fw: The Fall of AmericaTo: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com, TheAfrikanConscious nessCenter@ yahoogroups. com, theblacklist@ lists.riseup. net--- On Tue, 9/16/08, Marvin X Jackmon wrote: From: Marvin X Jackmon Subject: The Fall of America To: jmarvinx@yahoo. com Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008, 5:00 AM The Fall of America The fall of America was foretold by Elijah but his teachings were rejected by the Black intellectuals in Crisis whose Marxist analysis was not crystal clear on this point. But Elijah told you the dollar would be floating in the street soon and very soon. He told you men's hearts would be failing them due to the fear caused by the fall of the international finance system called Global capitalism or imperialism. He told you this in his book Fall of Amerca. But you intellectual Negroes are so smart you have outsmarted yourselves, thus your crisis. You can't figure your asses from a hole in the ground. You see American falling before your very eyes, yet you are dumbfounded on the reality before your eyes. The Great Beast cannot fall, not yet, he must recover, it is only a matter of time. No, brother, this is the fall of the Great Whore, Babylon the Great. And you may fall with him unless you pull your nuts out of the sand and get a grip on your Divinity. Keep thinking Sunni Islam can save you, or any other religiosity full of reaction rather than a radical destruction of the status quo. All your prayers are for naught, your meaningless praying and fasting can go to the winds that you see in the hurricanes blowing your asses into the skies from city to city, state to state. Pray and see of God will help you in your pitiful hour of need. This is the end for you and your master, whether white, Arab, Asian, European, African or whatever. They shall go down with you in your iniquity. You persist in hanging around the rich man's gate while he is suffering in misery because of his greed and desire for domination.

The Fall of America


The fall of America was foretold by Elijah but his teachings were rejected by the Black intellectuals in Crisis whose Marxist analysis was not crystal clear on this point. But Elijah told you the dollar would be floating in the street soon and very soon. He told you men's hearts would be failing them due to the fear caused by the fall of the international finance system called Global capitalism or imperialism. He told you this in his book Fall of Amerca. But you intellectual Negroes are so smart you have outsmarted yourselves, thus your crisis. You can't figure your asses from a hole in the ground. You see American falling before your very eyes, yet you are dumbfounded on the reality before your eyes. The Great Beast cannot fall, not yet, he must recover, it is only a matter of time. No, brother, this is the fall of the Great Whore, Babylon the Great.

And you may fall with him unless you pull your nuts out of the sand and get a grip on your Divinity. Keep thinking Sunni Islam can save you, or any other religiosity full of reaction rather than a radical destruction of the status quo. All your prayers are for naught, your meaningless praying and fasting can go to the winds that you see in the hurricanes blowing your asses into the skies from city to city, state to state. Pray and see if God will help you in your pitiful hour of need. This is the end for you and your master, whether white, Arab, Asian, European, African or whatever. They shall go down with you in your iniquity. You persist in hanging around the rich man's gate while he is suffering in misery because of his greed and desire for domination.
--Marvin X

Plato Negro as Legend


And they asked Plato how it felt being a living legend? He replied that one must be humble, not arrogant with a suprior attitude. Plato is a legend only because the spirit of God dwelled inside of him, thus he is merely a vehicle of the Divine, not of his own causation, for if it were up to him, he might prefer being in an alley smoking Crack. But he knows as a vehicle of the Divine, he must submit to his higher not lower self.

People should know that he is in constant grief at those fallen and departed warrior men and women, especially the dearly departed women who showed him their unconditional love.

He recognizes and appreciates all the brothers and sisters who have in their archives his early writings and have followed his carreer from the beginning until now. He is humbled when they describe how his writings transformed their lives. Khalid Muhammad (may his soul rest in paradise) used to always inform Plato he had studied his writings in college.

But he is most humbled by the people in the hood who have followed him every step of his way up the mountain, for they were with him.

They want to know how God preserved him and protected him. He reminds them of the story of the two women in the field, God took one and left the other. And so it is, we all shall have our moment on center stage, and then we exit, though no one knows the hour or the day. We must keep the faith til we win the race of the Race.

And we shall pass the baton at the earliest moment, for there are those who come after us who are of a world we shall never see, so we must not oppose them but guide them so they do not drop the baton but cross the finish line to victory.

Behind the Curtain: The San Francisco Theater Festival
By Rajesh Srinivasan July 30, 2008 | 10:10 pm

The San Francisco Theater Festival was a far-cry from traditional theater festivals. It was a combination of both the expected and the surprising, the traditional and the unorthodox. One thing is certain: There is no way you could cover every facet of the 6-hour non-stop event. Still, I made an effort to go to as many different performances as I could so that I would experience the full breadth of the festival.

Recovering from the Addiction of White Supremacy

If there was one piece of evidence that showed that this festival was not traditional, it was Marvin X’s speech on white supremacy. The act was not so much of a performance as a lecture, as Marvin X delivered an fiery sermon about white supremacy based off his book “How to Recover from the Addiction of White Supremacy.” The speech received a less-than-lukewarm response from the audience; in fact, some of the audience members left during the presentation. After the lecture, I spoke with a professor of African-American studies at the University of Nebraska who attended the performance. Professor Patrick Jones said that Marvin X was “coming out of a particular tradition in the black arts movement…rooted in the late ’60s and ’70s” and that there was truth to what he said about white supremacy.

“His vibe and his anger and his frustration are real, so I appreciate and respect that,” Jones said.

“The question would be is that the best tactic to take to reach people at this particular historical moment. And therein lies the question for all of us.”

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 09/13/2008 Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’ re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

------------ --------- --------- --------- -------

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.

Marvin X: A Critical Look at the Father

of Muslim American Literature

Edited by Nefertiti El Muhajir

Preface

By Dr. Mohja Kahf



Marvin X: First Muslim American Poet


Have spent the last few days (when not mourning with friends and family the passing of my family friend and mentor in Muslim feminism and Islamic work, Sharifa AlKhateeb, (may she dwell in Rahma), immersed in the work of Marvin X and amazed at his brilliance. This poet has been prolific since his first book of poems, Fly to Allah, (1969), right up to his most recent Love and War Poems (1995) and Land of My Daughters, 2005, not to mention his plays, which were produced (without royalties) in Black community theatres from the 1960s to the present, and essay collections such as In the Crazy House Called America, 2002, and Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, 2005.

Marvin X was a prime shaper of the Black Arts Movement (1964-1970s) which is, among other things, the birthplace of modern Muslim American literature, and it begins with him. Well, Malik Shabazz and him. But while the Autobiography of Malcolm X is a touchstone of Muslim American culture, Marvin X and other Muslims in BAM were the emergence of a cultural expression of Black Power and Muslim thought inspired by Malcolm, who was, of course, ignited by the teachings and writings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And that, taken all together, is what I see as the starting point of Muslim American literature. Then there are others, immigrant Muslims and white American Muslims and so forth, that follow.

There are also antecedents, such as the letters of Africans enslaved in America. Maybe there is writing by Muslims in the Spanish and Portuguese era or earlier, but that requires archival research of a sort I am not going to be able to do. My interest is contemporary literature, and by literature I am more interested in poetry and fiction than memoir and non-fiction, although that is a flexible thing.

I argue that it is time to call Muslim American literature a field, even though many of these writings can be and have been classified in other ways—studied under African American literature or to take the writings of immigrant Muslims, studied under South Asian ethnic literature or Arab American literature.

With respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just now hearing about him—I read Malcolm when I was 12, I read Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and others from the BAM in college and graduate school—why is attention not given to his work in the same places I encountered these other authors? Declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his incredibly rich body of work.

He deserves to be WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the world at large. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true to the word!

Love and War Poems is wrenching and powerful, combining a powerful critique of America ("America downsizes like a cripple whore/won't retire/too greedy to sleep/too fat to rest") but also a critique of deadbeat dads and drug addicts (not sparing himself) and men who hate. "For the Men" is so Quranic poem it gave me chills with verses such as:



for the men who honor wives
and the men who abuse them
for the men who win
and the men who sin
for the men who love God
and the men who hate
for the men who are brothers
and the men who are beasts


"O Men, listen to the wise," the poet pleads:



there is no escape
for the men of this world
or the men of the next

He is sexist as all get out, in the way that is common for men of his generation and his radicalism, but he is refreshingly aware of that and working on it. It's just that the work isn't done and if that offends you to see a man in process and still using the 'b' word, look out. Speaking of the easily offended, he warns in his introduction that "life is often profane and obscene, such as the present condition of African American people." If you want pure and holy, he says, read the Quran and the Bible, because Marvin is talking about "the low down dirty truth." For all that, the poetry of Marvin X is like prayer, beauty-full of reverence and honor for Truth. "It is. it is. it is."

A poem to his daughter Muhammida is a sweet mix of parental love and pride and fatherly freak-out at her sexuality and independence, ending humbly with:



peace Mu
it's on you
yo world
sister-girl


Other people don't get off so easy, including a certain "black joint chief of staff ass nigguh (kill 200,000 Muslims in Iraq)" in the sharply aimed poem "Free Me from My Freedom." (Mmm hmm, the 'n' word is all over the place in Marvin too.) Nature poem, wedding poem, depression poem, wake-up call poems, it's all here. Haiti, Rwanda, the Million Man March, Betsy Ross's maid, OJ, Rabin, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and other topics make it into this prophetically voiced collection of dissent poetry, so Islamic and so African American in its language and its themes, a book that will stand in its beauty long after the people mentioned in it pass. READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!

Mohja Kahf / Associate Professor / Dept. of English & Middle East & Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville

Black Artists in Oakland - Google Book Search

Black Artists in Oakland - Google Book Search

Plato Negro on the Last Days


Mama said there would be days like this, and the prophets told us as well that the time would come when men and women would have heart attacks caused by fear, fear to love and be loved, fear to put their money in banks that are failing with each passing day, fear their jobs will be outsourced to India and China, fear of going out to eat dinner because there might be a robbery while they are dinning, fear to visit the barber shop because their might be a shooting outside or inside, the same when attending a night club or concert. The people are thus consumed by the fears that paralyze them with stress from the hostile environment. And there is the fear of nature itself, the drought and famine, earthquakes in diverse places, hurricanes, floods and pandemics caused by the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries in conspiracy.

We were told the people would be destroyed from lack of knowledge. We wonder how people can be destroyed for lack of knowledge with so much information floating through the airways. No matter, the majority are yet deaf, dumb and blind, dead men and women walking, totally oblivious to what’s really going on, although even in their ignorance they sense something is amiss, something stinks in the house, dead rats or their doodoo.

How can a society advance with 60% of our children dropping out or pushed out of school? Instead of attending school where little is taught that is meaningful or thoughtful or useful, the children go to and fro through the streets causing wickedness and mayhem, or doing drugs and sex, destroying their young minds and bodies.

And we were warned the people’s minds would be confounded due to the desire for wickedness and evil, including lust, sexual depravities, greed and selfishness. No matter what the wise prophets of old have told us about what happens when people do contrary to what is right and just, there are those who deem themselves smarter than God and the Goddess, thus when the Divine forces of nature consume them, the people are confounded and claim God has abandoned them when in fact it is they who abandoned God, destroying his earth and people with capitalist greed and the desire for maximum profits with minimum labor and resource costs, with little regard for the residue of their greed in the form of polluted rivers, lakes and oceans, poisoned and depleted agricultural lands, even the forests are raped of their woods for development.

Yet in the end time for this civilization, man thinks he can reverse the course he has embarked upon which shall surely end with his demise, and perhaps without his presence nature will return to the eternal peace so prevalent in the eons before the birth of mankind, the destroyer of the paradise he found himself incapable of dwelling in harmony, despite God placing him in authority to rule with care, justice and mercy.

Contrary to the will of God, man has proceeded to wreak havoc upon the land and peoples with endless wars, crimes of genocide in the name of religions and ideologies, ethnic and racial supremacy.

Today he again faces the possibility of nuclear annihilation as war approaches between the capitalists and communists over scarce economic resources such as oil and precious metals, even water is becoming a highly valued commodity since clean water is a luxury in many places, and the lack thereof the cause of many diseases that could be eradicated with it.

As I have written, the Green Revolution may come about by Nature itself, not by anything man attempts, for this revolution may only be successful with the eradication of man from the planet and universe.

In your supreme arrognace, you think the earth cannot do without you, yet you are the direct cause of all that is wrong, for nature has done nothing but be at your disposition, whim and pleasure, like a dutiful lover. Why should not the earth shake you off, drown you and let her hurricane winds blow you into dust?



--Plato Negro



For more writings by Plato Negro, go to www.marvinxwrites. blogspot. com.

W.D. Muhammad Makes Transition

CHICAGO -- A nephew says Imam W.D. Mohammed, the son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad, has died.Sultan Muhammad says his uncle died Tuesday. He didn't immediately give further details but says the family will issue a statement. W.D. Mohammed moved thousands of blacks into mainstream Islam after breaking with the group his father founded. He went by both Warith Deen Mohammed and Wallace Muhammad.
The Cook County Medical Examiner confirmed receiving the body of a 74-year-old Wallace Mohammed.
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Muslim Leader Imam Warithdin Muhammad Makes Transition







Bismillah-r-Rahman-r-Rahim. It has come to our attention the great Muslim American theologian, Warithdin Muhammad, son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, made his transition to Paradise. It was Warithdin who took over the reins of power when Elijah Muhammad passed in 1975. In taking the Nation of Islam into Sunni Islam, we felt he threw the baby out with the wash water, but in truth the Nation had become a din of iniquity, full of thieves, robbers, dope dealers and sexual deviants, the very antithesis of the personalities Elijah Muhammad had attempted to resurrect and reconstruct from the graveyard in the wilderness of North America. But no matter the failings of some of Elijah’s students, there were many whose lives were indeed transformed into better human and spiritual beings, while the rest got Supreme Wisdom but didn’t get it, and as a result the condition of many Muslims is worse than that of the deaf, dumb and blind Christians they decry. How is it that Muslims possessing Supreme Wisdom and Sunni Islam exist is such poverty they are the mockery of Christian and other Negroes, even the white man who is overjoyed whenever he sees North American Africans doing for self, thus relieving him of their burden, as if he is not the direct cause of their burden. This very day, he has taken billions of taxpayer’s money to bail out the international bankers who have defrauded millions of black, white, brown and yellow people of their fundamental wealth, their homes. Yet, the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will not help the poor one iota, but is de facto socialism for the rich, while more poor people shall become dispossessed of their basic wealth.



Warithdin was steeped in Sunni ideology that is mostly reactionary religiosity—one only need look at the Sunni Islamic world with billions in oil money, yet the people exist in virtual slavery, poverty, ignorance and disease, from the Maghreb (Northwest Africa) to the Persian Gulf. In Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States, the people are denied basic human rights and democratic liberties. Little opposition is allowed and except for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, there is no radical opposition to the autocratic regimes, unless we call Osama Bin Laden’s theology radical, but only in the right wing manner and the Stone Age Saudi Arabian brand of Islamic fundamentalism.



Toward the end of his life, Warithdin turned back to the do for self teachings of his father. In so doing, he mirrors Farrakhan who is also turning back to the Supreme Wisdom of Elijah Muhammad, since the teachings from his Study Guide carried his followers nowhere.



As the followers of Warithdin celebrate his transition, it is time for them to make a great leap forward out of the grave of reaction and let the masses see they indeed understand the teachings of Elijah was the ultimate truth for the present era. Clearly, the devil is the devil, no matter what time or place, and he shall appear in white face or black face, have no illusions on this point. We must therefore guard against being deceived, no matter if it is John McCain or Barak Obama.





Finally, Warithdin did indeed attempt to clean out his father’s house. But the sad fact is that after his mission, there yet remain devils in the house, faking as imams but have the intention to practice white supremacy domination and dictatorial authority using the Qur’an, Hadith and Sharia to legitimatize their iniquities, as in the old regime, making mockery of all that Warithdeen and his father attempted to construct. May Warithdeen rest in peace and paradise for all the good he accomplished. And may his followers heal from their sorrow and celebrate the infinite possibilities he engendered.



--Marvin X (El Muhajir), poet, playwright, essayist, activist, is considered the father of Muslim American literature and one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement, the most radical literary and artistic movement in American history. www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com. He is now booking engagements for 2009. Call 510-355-6339. His latest book is How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702, $19.95.

Plato Negro On the Gambler


The gambler is a sick man walking, a little sick puppy in a world of many other sick puppies, drug addicts, alcoholics, speed freaks, and the many suffering from the addiction to white supremacy. But the gambler exhibits traits that reveal the extreme effects of white supremacy addiction. He is hopeless in desiring a quick turnover of his fate in life, having faith in the Fates to deliver him home safely and with good fortune. He believes the Fates are with him, yes, in his warped mind and confounded conviction that he must win, thus in his delusion God is with him or he is with God, which on the positive is a good thing, the very essence of spirituality, but on the downside, the murderer and drug dealer can say that God is with him. While we know better, we know God is not with murderers and drug dealers or others who poison the people with games of chance, and let’s put those sub-prime scam international bankers in the forefront of Gamblers Anonymous.

Like any other addict, the gambler must detoxify his desire to win at any cost, no matter the odds stacked against him. The gambler will not quit while he is ahead but is not happy and satisfied until he has lost all, but he cares , for his rationale is that the world is but a gamble so why not do all or nothing? If you’re going to do, do it in a big way, is the gambler’s mantra.

The gambler is highly motivated although his delusion is that his activities are merely occasional and recreational. In his denial, he has no problem and should be left alone to pursue his dreams. He works hard, so why not play hard? In his wretched mind, he is doing fine, so get out of his mix, his grill.

We see a concerted effort by family and friends to intervene with the gambler but he waves them away, for his addiction is turning for the worse, he is not able to make it to work in the morning or to makes those monthly bills, his love life is going down hill but he is oblivious to it in his classic tragic blindness of ego and selfishness.

He will ultimately lose family and friends because the addiction goes from bad to worse, until we reach that classic rock bottom. Maybe in our exhaustion, we consider the possibility of recovery and the reconstruction of family, which, as with all addicts, is the only road to sanity, for people are above profits, love is priceless and the gambler ultimately comes to this realization or pursues his addiction until he dies, until he is with the homeless, the down and out, the skid row community of derelicts and soup kitchen attendees famous at Glide Church, Saint Anthony’s, St. Martin De Poores and St. Vincent De Paul..
--Plato Negro
9.7.08

Let Me





Let me feel the glory of the sun

attraction of the Moon

Let me see and hear the roar of the ocean

violence of the wind

submission of the lover

to the beloved

What wonder is this

What time of day is it

Is it morning

dawn

noon time

afternoon

The evening of lovers into the night

What time is it?

Am I late to my beloved

Am I early for her caress

Her sweet lips

Her valley of the Nile

her secret ocean bubbles over

we are consumed in the night.



What time of day is it

What is the hour of love

That cannot be denied

You cannot run

You cannot hide

History will trample upon you

History will beat you into submission

Submit to the wind and rain and snow

Swim in the river of love

until you drown.



--m

American Literature: Marvin X


Marvin X (b. 1944), poet, playwright, essayist, director, and lecturer. Marvin Ellis Jackmon was born on 29 May 1944 in Fowler, California. He attended high school in Fresno and received a BA and MA in English from San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). The mid-1960s were formative years for Jackmon. He became involved in theater, founded his own press, published several plays and volumes of poetry, and became increasingly alienated because of racism and the Vietnam War. Under the influence of Elijah Muhammad, he became a Black Muslim and has published since then under the names El Muhajir and Marvin X. He has also used the name Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir.

Marvin X and Ed Bullins founded the Black Arts/West Theatre in San Francisco in 1966, and several of his plays were staged during that period in San Francisco, Oakland, New York, and by local companies across the United States. His one-act play Flowers for the Trashman was staged in San Francisco in 1965 and was included in the anthology Black Fire (1968); a musical version, Take Care of Business, was produced in 1971. The play presents the confrontation between two cellmates in a jail—one a young African American college student, the other a middle-aged white man. Another one-act play, The Black Bird, a Black Muslim allegory in which a young man offers lessons in life awareness to two small girls, appeared in 1969 and was included in New Plays from the Black Theatre that year. Several other plays, including The Trial, Resurrection of the Dead, and In the Name of Love, have been successfully staged, and Marvin X has remained an important advocate of African American theater.

In 1967, Marvin X was convicted, during the Vietnam War, for refusing induction and fled to Canada; eventually he was arrested in Honduras, was returned to the United States, and was sentenced to five months in prison. In his statement on being sentenced—later reprinted in Black Scholar (1971) and also in Clyde Taylor's anthology, Vietnam and Black America (1973)—he argues that

Any judge, any jury, is guilty of insanity that would have the nerve to judge and convict and imprison a black man because he did not appear in a courtroom on a charge of refusing to commit crimes against humanity, crimes against his own brothers and sisters, the peace-loving people of Vietnam.


Marvin X founded El Kitab Sudan publishing house in 1967; several of his books of poetry and proverbs have been published there. Much of Marvin X's poetry is militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did You Vote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at African Americans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns. Many of the proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation from white America. However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems express more concern with what African Americans can do positively for themselves, without being paralyzed by hatred. He insists that the answer is to concentrate on establishing a racial identity and to “understand that art is celebration of Allah.” The poems in Fly to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumes from his El Kitab Sudan press are characterized by their intensity and their message of racial unity under a religious banner.

Marvin X has remained active as a lecturer, teacher, theatrical producer, editor, and exponent of Islam. His work in advocating racial cohesion and religious dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around him in the 1960s and 1970s made him an important voice of his generation.

Bibliography

Lorenzo Thomas, “Marvin X,” in DLB, vol. 38, Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, eds. Thadious Davis and Trudier Harris, 1985, pp. 177–184.
Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., “Marvin X,” in Contemporary Black American Playwrights and Their Plays, 1988, pp. 332–333. “El Muhajir,” in CA, vol. 26, eds. Hal May and James G. Lesniak, 1989, pp. 132–133
Michael E. Greene

Biography: Marvin X
poet; playwright; educator; activist

Personal Information

Born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California; married; five children
Education: Oakland City College (now Merritt College), AA, 1964; San Francisco State College (now University), BA, 1974, MA, 1975.

Career

Soul Book, Encore, Black World, Black Scholar, and other magazines and newspapers, contributor, 1965-; Black Dialogue, fiction editor, 1965-; Journal of Black Poetry, contributing editor,1965-; Black Arts/West Theatre, San Francisco, co-founder (with Bullins), 1966; Black House, San Francisco, co-founder (with Bullins and Eldridge Cleaver), 1967; Al Kitab Sudan Publishing Company, San Francisco, founder, 1967; California State University at Fresno, black studies teacher, 1967; Black Theatre, associate editor, 1968; Muhammad Speaks, foreign editor, 1970; Your Black Educational Theatre, Inc., San Francisco, founder and director, 1971; University of California, Berkeley, lecturer, 1972; Mills College, lecturer, 1973.

Life's Work

Formerly known as El Muhajir, Marvin X was a key poet and playwright of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) in the 1960s and early 1970s. He wrote for many of the leading black journals of the time, including Black Scholar, Black Theater Magazine, and Muhammad Speaks. He founded Black House with Ed Bullins (1935--) and Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), which served for a short time as the headquarters of the Black Panther Party, the militant black nationalist group, and a community theatrical center in Oakland County, California. Always a controversial and confrontational figure, Marvin X was banned from teaching at state universities in the 1960s by the then state governor, Ronald Reagan (1911--). When asked in 2003 what had happened to the Black Arts Movement, Marvin X told Lee Hubbard: "I am still working on it...telling it like it is."

Marvin X was born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California, an agricultural area near Fresno. His parents were Owendell and Marian Jackmon; his mother ran her own real estate business. Details about when and why he changed his name are scarce, but he has been known as Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir, El Muhajir, and is now known simply as Marvin X. Marvin X attended Oakland City College (Merritt College) where he received his AA degree in 1964. He received his BA in English from San Francisco State College (San Francisco State University) in 1974 and his MA in 1975.

While at college Marvin X was involved with various theater projects and co-founded the Black Arts/West Theater with Bullins and others. Their aim was to provide a place where black writers and performers could work on drama projects, but they also had a political motive, to use theater and writing to campaign for the liberation of blacks from white oppression. Marvin X told Lee Hubbard: "The Black Arts Movement was part of the liberation movement of Black people in America. The Black Arts Movement was its artistic arm...[brothers] got a revolutionary consciousness through Black art, drama, poetry, music, paintings, artwork, and magazines."

By the late 1960s Marvin X was a central figure in the Black Arts Movement in San Francisco and had become part of the Nation of Islam, changing his name to El Muhajir and following Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). Like the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942--), Marvin X refused his induction to fight in Vietnam. But unlike Ali, Marvin X, along with several other members of the Nation of Islam in California, decided to evade arrest. In 1967 he escaped to Canada but was later arrested in Belize. He chastised the court for punishing him for refusing to be inducted into an army for the purpose of securing "White Power" throughout the world before he was sentenced to five months' imprisonment. His statement was published in the journal The Black Scholar in 1971.

Despite his reputation as an activist, Marvin X was also an intellectual, and a celebrated writer. He was most concerned with the problem of using language created by whites in order to argue for freedom from white power. Many of his plays and poems reflect this struggle to express himself as a black intellectual in a white-dominated society. His play Flowers for the Trashman (1965), for example, is the story of Joe Simmons, a jailed college student whose bitter attack on his white cellmate became a national rallying call for many in the Nation of Islam and other black nationalists. Marvin X's own poetry is heavy with Muslim ideology and propaganda, but it is supported by a sensitive poetic ear. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a poet is to merge Islamic cadences and sensibilities with scholarly American English and the language of the black ghetto.

Like his close friend Eldridge Cleaver, in the late 1980s and 1990s Marvin X went through a period of addiction to crack cocaine. His play One Day in the Life (2000) takes a tragicomic approach to the issue of addiction and recovery, dealing with his own experiences with drug addiction and the experiences of Black Panthers, Cleaver, and Huey Newton (1942-1989). The play has been presented in community theaters around the United States as both a stage play and a video presentation. After emerging from addiction Marvin X founded Recovery Theatre and began organizing events for recovering addicts and those who work with them. His autobiography, Somethin' Proper (1998) includes reminiscences of his life fighting for black civil rights as well as an analysis of drug culture. Drug addiction and "reactionary" rap poetry are two areas of black culture that he has argued have "contributed to the desecration of black people."

In the late 1990s Marvin X became an influential figure in the campaign to have reparations paid for the treatment of blacks under slavery. He organized meetings, readings, and performances to promote black culture and civil rights. He has worked as a university teacher since the early 1970s, as well as giving readings and guest lectures in universities and theaters throughout the United States. Marvin X has also received several awards, including a Columbia University writing grant in 1969 and a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1972.

Awards

Columbia University, writing grant, 1969; National Endowment for the Arts, grant, 1972; Your Black Educational Theatre, training grant, 1971-72.

Works

Selected writings

Books
Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet, Blackbird Press, 1998.
In the Crazy House Called America, Blackbird Press, 2002.
Plays
Flowers for the Trashman (one-act), first produced in San Francisco at San Francisco State College, 1965.
Come Next Summer, first produced in San Francisco at Black Arts/West Theatre, 1966.
The Trial, first produced in New York City at Afro-American Studio for Acting and Speech, 1970.
Take Care of Business, (musical version of Flowers for the Trashman) first produced in Fresno, California, at Your Black Educational Theatre, 1971.
Resurrection of the Dead, first produced in San Francisco at Your Black Educational Theatre, 1972.
Woman-Man's Best Friend, (musical dance drama based on author's book of same title), first produced in Oakland, California, at Mills College, 1973.
In the Name of Love, first produced in Oakland at Laney College Theatre, 1981.
One Day in the Life, 2000.
Sergeant Santa, 2002.

Poetry, Proverbs, and Lyrics
Sudan Rajuli Samia (poems), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
Black Dialectic (proverbs), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
As Marvin X, Fly to Allah: Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
As Marvin X, The Son of Man, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
As Marvin X, Black Man Listen: Poems and Proverbs, Broadside Press, 1969.
Black Bird (parable), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1972.
Woman-Man's Best Friend, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1973.
Selected Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1979.
(as Marvin X) Confession of a Wife Beater and Other Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1981. Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1982.
Love and War: Poems, Black Bird Press, 1995.
In the Land of My Daughters, 2002.

Other

One Day in the Life (videodrama and soundtrack), 2002.
The Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness (video documentary), 2002.
Love and War (poetry reading published on CD), 2001.

Further Reading

Periodicals

African American Review, Spring, 2001.
On-line
"Chicken Bones: A Journal," www.nathanielturner.com/marvinxtable.htm (April 13, 2004).
"El Muhajir," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April 16, 2004).
"Marvin X," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April 16, 2004).
"Marvin X Calls for General Strike on Reparations," www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4714 (April 13, 2004).

— Chris Routledge

Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet. - Review - book review
African American Review, Spring, 2001 by Julius E. Thompson
E-mail Print Link Marvin X (Marvin E. Jackmon) [El Muhajir]. Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet. Castro Valley, CA: Black Bird P, 1998. 278 pp. $29.95.

Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper is one of the most significant works to come out of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It tells the story of perhaps the most important African American Muslim poet to appear in the United States during the Civil Rights era. The book opens with an introduction by scholar Nathan Hare, a key figure in the Black Studies Movement of the period. Marvin X then takes center stage with an exploration of his life's story, juxtaposed with the rapidly changing events and movements of contemporary history: the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts Movement, the Black Power Movement, the growth of Islam in America, and especially the influence of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, and the series of challenges facing black people in recent decades.

Related Results
Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet. - Rev... Marvin X was born Marvin E. Jackmon in Fowler, California, on May 29, 1944, and grew up in West Fresno and West Oakland, California. His early education was completed in these cities, and he later attended Oakland City College (Merritt) and San Francisco State University, where he was awarded a B.A. and an M.A. in English. He emerged as an important new poetic voice among California black poets in the late 1960s, and wrote for several of the key Black Arts Movement journals of the period, including the Journal of Black Poetry, Soulbook, Black Dialogue, Black Theatre magazine, Black Scholar, Black World, and Muhammad Speaks. He was also a key playwright of the era, working with Ed Bullins in organizing the Black Arts West Theatre in San Francisco and in founding the Black House, also in San Francisco, with Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver, and Ethna Wyatt. He also worked with Bullins at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. During the last forty years, Marvin X has taught Black Studies, literature, drama, and English at Fresno State University, the University of California, Berkeley and San Diego, the University of Nevada, Reno, San Francisco State University, Mills College, and Merritt and Laney Colleges in Oakland, California.

His very active career is also reflected in a rapid-moving life style. This fact is documented by the author in twenty chapters in Somethin' Proper, followed by an appendix, which captures the life and death of Huey Newton. Marvin X was a busy man during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a Black Muslim, an associate of the key leaders of the Black Panther Party (Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver), an anti-Vietnam War protester (he went into exile in Canada, and later in Central America, rather than be drafted into the United States Army), and an outspoken critic of American economic, social, and cultural discrimination of African Americans at home, and of Third World peoples abroad. This theme is reflected in one of his most famous poems of the period, "Burn, Baby Burn":

Tired, sick and tired.

Tired of being sick and tired.

Lost, lost in

The wilderness of white America.

Are the masses asses?

Cool, said the master

To the slave, "No problem,

Don't rob and steal, I'll

Be your driving wheel."

Cool.

And he wheeled us into

350 years of Black

Madness--to hog guts,

Conked hair, quo vadis

Bleaching cream,

Uncle Thomas, to Watts

To the streets, to the

Killllllllll ........

Boommmmm ............

2 honkeys gone.

Motherfuck the police

And Parker's sister too

Burn, baby, burn*******

Cook outta sight*******

Fineburgs, wineburgs,

Safeway, noway, burn .....

Baby, burn

Somethin' Proper also reveals Marvin X's family life, marriages, children, and friends, and notes the conflicts which he has experienced across the years with individuals, organizations, and governments. He writes in a style which captures the essence of black language, folklore, and culture in the United States, with an upscale urban beat! Marvin X notes the high and low points in his own life and that of his associates. Most potent is his analysis of the drug situation in this country, and its relationship to and impact upon the black struggle. He calls for change and reform in this area, stressing the need for continued black struggle to overcome the age-old problems of discrimination, racism, and oppression in America.

Marvin X remains an active writer today. His body of work includes Fly to Allah (1969); Black Man Listen (1969), a key work in Dudley Randall's catalogue at Broadside Press; Woman, Man's Best Friend (1973); and a play, One Day in the Life, most recently produced in 1997 in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey. His most recent books of poetry are Love and War (1995), Land of My Daughters, 2005. He remains a very interesting voice from the Black Arts Movement, continuing to write and to challenge contemporary readers to think and to act, and to assess the past, the present, and the future.

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